Firefighters welcome better facilities

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), John Pirro THE NEWS-TIMES

Published
1:00 am EST, Monday, November 29, 2004

City firefighters are already living in renovated quarters and training with new equipment.

By the end of next year, they will also be working out of several improved facilities, responding to structure fires with a new aerial ladder truck, and sharpening their skills at a rebuilt training school on Plumtrees Road.

Several of the projects were funded through the $55 million bond package approved by voters last year. Others will be paid for with money from a previous bond issue.

The first upgrade that will be apparent to city residents is the new, 100-foot aerial ladder truck now scheduled for delivery by the second week of December, said Fire Chief
Peter Siecienski
.

The $850,000 truck will replace a 1981 model that was often in need of repairs and is too large to fit under bridges on West and Rose streets, necessitating time-consuming detours.

Fire officials will be traveling to the Appleton, Wis., factory where the truck is nearing completion shortly after Thanksgiving, and it all goes according to plan, it will be delivered two weeks later.

"That will be a great benefit to us,'' Siecienski said.

The old truck will be put up for sale.

Demolition will begin next week at the city's fire training building on Plumtrees Road, which was condemned and closed in 1998 because it was unsafe.

The old concrete and block structure, built to resemble a two-story colonial house, was used since 1972 to instruct city firefighters in a variety of firefighting techniques.

Since it was closed, career firefighters have been forced to travel out of town to similar facilities, substantially increasing the department's overtime budget.

The closing has also been a hardship for volunteer firefighters, because they had to take time off from their regular jobs to undergo training, Siecienski said.

Having a facility in Danbury should make it easier for the volunteer departments to recruit and retain members, he said.

Depending on the weather, a new building should be in place by spring.

Next on the list is the long-awaited expansion of the King Street fire station, home to the department's Engine 25.

For more than 20 years, the city has been leasing the 1,500-square-foot building from the
King Street Volunteer Fire Department
in order to reduce response time to calls from the largely rural northern portion of Danbury.

The station, which is manned round-the-clock by a lieutenant and two firefighters, will double in space under plans drawn up by local architect
Donald Zaleta
.

An additional bay will be added to the building's north side, permitting an expansion of the current 400-square-foot living quarters.

"These improvements are the most comprehensive in a long time, probably since the construction of the New Street fire headquarters," Mayor
Mark Boughton
said. "They will have a profound and positive impact on fire protection in the city. We should have the actual work out to bid by the end of November or early December,'' Boughton said.

Construction of the approximately $400,000 project will get underway in the spring, with completion expected within a few months.

The largest of the projects will also be the last one completed.

Three sites are under consideration for a fire station that will house a new company, Engine 26, on the city's fast-growing west side.

The favored site is a city-owned tract on West Kenosia Avenue near
Danbury Municipal Airport
, but a final determination awaits the result of traffic and environmental studies by the project architects, Boughton said.

Once the station is completed and staffed, response time to calls from the many new housing developments in the area, as well as the Danbury Fair mall, will be dramatically reduced.